The National Republican Senatorial Committee was forced to apologize Tuesday after a junior staffer sent out a link to a image of Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes’ face photo-shopped onto a scantily-clad woman’s body. “Is Alison Grimes The New ‘Obama Girl’?” the now-deleted tweet asked the account’s 55,000 followers:
The link took followers to a page on the political blog Bluegrass Bulletin, which discussed a recent appearance Grimes made with First Lady Michelle Obama at a New York fundraiser along with the photo below of Grimes’ face on the body of “Obama Girl” Amber Lee Ettinger:
A spokesperson for the NRSC said it was a “mistake”
The author of the blog post also decided to remove the photo from Bluegrass Bulletin, noting:
“A satirical photoshop image of Alison Lundergan Grimes as the famous Obama Girl’ which appeared here this morning has apparently caused quite a stir. It was intended to be a humorous punctuation mark to ALG being an intended beneficiary of Michele Obama’s fundraising at a Washington DSCC event. I have removed it from this post voluntarily.”
Grimes, who is polling closely with incumbent Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement of her own, denouncing the GOP’s “pattern” of sexism:
“The NRSC should stand for Notoriously Repeating Sexist Comments – they cannot relate or connect with the women of Kentucky or our country. The incredibly inappropriate comments from Senator McConnell’s team mark a developing pattern and demonstrate just how out of touch McConnell is with the women of Kentucky. As I have said, I am proud to wear a dress, and as Kentucky’s more than two million women know, it is not what is in the dress that matters. It is what
is in the head and I will stack my head up against Senator McConnell’s any day.”
[photo via screengrab]
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